Shiritori Game: What is it and How to Play?

What is Shiritori?

Shiritori (尻取り) is a word play game that involves saying Japanese words back and forth. It requires a minimum of two players, but there’s no reason more can’t take part. The catch is the next word must start with the same kana as the previously words’ last kana. The word shiritori is a shortening of shiri o toru (尻を取る) with the two kanji for “rear” and “take”, so the word essentially means “to take the rear”.

How to Play?

To start playing, first decide on the turn order of each player. Next, pick a starting word, the most common one being “shiritori”. Using “shiritori” (しりとり) as an example to start an imaginary game, the next word has to start with “ri” (り) since that is the last kana in shiritori. So the next word could be something like “risu” (りす), meaning squirrel in English. The next word now needs to start with “su” (す), like “suika” (すいか) which means watermelon.

This can continue on and on, so how does someone win/lose?

Japanese kana all end in a vowel sound with the exception of ん translated as “n”. No words in Japanese start with this kana. So if someone says a word that ends in ん, then the game can’t continue. Naturally this means that the person who says the word ending in ん loses. Also it should be noted that words can start with the “n” sound like in the kana for “na, ni, nu, ne, no” (な、に、ぬ、ね、の), but the kana ん is different and has no vowel sound following it.

Those are the basic rules. However, if we leave it at that, there are some words that fit within a grey area that might lead to uncertainties for how to continue.

In the event a word is used that ends in a yōon, i.e. a kana with another small kana beside it like しょ, there are two options. Either the next word can start with the full yōon, or players can use the small kana since it is technically the last kana. Most people seem to opt for the yōon since it feels more natural to play this way. So for a word like dictionary, which is “jisho” (じしょ), the next word will start with しょ rather than よ.

Another set of words that may need clearing up are words that end with long sounds. In this case, most people will typically play it where the second to last kana is used. In katana the long dash (ー) following a kana makes a longer sound. For example, in the word “wuisukii” (ウイスキー) meaning whiskey, the dash signifies holding out the “kii” part of the word. Even though the long dash in this case means “i”, it makes more sense for the next word to start with “ki” (キ). So the next word could be something like, “kitte” (きって) meaning stamp.

With those rule, you can now play a game of shiritori.

Extra Shiritori Rules

Shiritori is a popular elementary school game; however, as you get older you may realize that the game has some easily exploitable flaws. The biggest one is loops. After playing a few games you might find that you and another player are saying the same few words over and over in the same order. In really bad cases some words can just be said one after the other forever. For example, if you say the word for peach, i.e. “momo” (もも), then the other player could say もも and then you could say もも again and… Now you are stuck in a loop until someone decides to say something else.

While a slightly annoying flaw, this won’t prevent you from playing the game, as one player just needs to say something else. The problem is that loops are an easy way to make sure you don’t ever lose; so left alone they incentivize each player to stay in the loop. Needless to say that makes the game a lot more boring instead of fun.

The easiest fix is to just add a rule stating that each word can only be used once, and that will solve the loop problem.

Another issue for older players with large vocabularies is that it’s not too hard to keep coming up with new words. While that doesn’t seem like a bad problem, it can also make the games take a long time. To help with this, many people only use nouns, which significantly helps limit the set of useable words and also prevents much more convoluted problems.

These two extra rules help prevent games from getting stale and keep shiritori fun.

More rules can be added to mix things up too. Try starting from different words than just “shiritori” or try a theme like locations or animals.

My favorite example of a themed shiritori is from the ending song to the anime, Pokémon Journeys. In the song, the singers play shiritori using only Pokémon names. There’s even an extra rule added where they try to win by getting to the Pokémon Zamazenta first.

Shiritori can be fun for all ages and is a great game to keep your mind sharp. If you ever get bored with it, try adding other rules to make it more challenging or pick a theme to help steer you towards words you may have never used in a game yet.